


where are you, where are you now?

by xotalia



Series: oh how fast the evening passes [4]
Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: F/F, Hell - freeform, I think it counts, We Die Like Men, anne brings cathy back from the dead, but i don't remember what it it, hell yeah, i mean it's not really death but she's dead for a good part of it, im so sorry, no beta reading, the idea for this came from this post on reddit, this bad boy has so many god damn typos in it, you ever just have a bunch of teeth??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 19:08:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20457998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xotalia/pseuds/xotalia
Summary: i never considered following someone wherever they went,until i met you.





	where are you, where are you now?

_ i never considered following anyone wherever they went, _

anne leaves late in the afternoon. she throws the hood of her coat over her head and laces on hiking boots, though it was late spring and fairly hot outside. only kitty knew where she was, assuming that she would call the police if she wasn’t back in two days. 

she squares her shoulders to fend off fear gnawing at the back of her brain and triple checks her bag- which was something that cathy would’ve done. forgetting something, she runs upstairs quickly and grabs cathy’s favourite book, one that anne regretted she didn’t know more about.

she steps out of the house and says a silent goodbye to nobody. she won’t come back alone. 

__

anne walks until her head spins. she doesn’t know where she is or how to get out of the forest, since she’d been avoiding the guards who knew her well and assumed she was going to stir trouble. as soon as it’s too dark to see, she looks to the left, putting the batteries in her flashlight and turning it on. 

when she sees the glow, nearly blinding in the weary traveller’s eyes and under the gloss of lady night, she makes a beeline towards it. she trips over a couple of branches along the way, but doesn’t let that stop her.

it disappears once she reaches it. she sits down right in front of where it was and places her flashlight between crossed legs and hunches over, straining her eyes to find it again, get a glimpse of where she was, maybe. 

“catherine,” she breathes, outstretching her hand and touching the grass, cold now. then, she looks up at the sky and the stars that dot it, its beauty mocking her in her vulnerable state. she tucks hair behind her ear. “i miss you. and i want you back because i took you for granted, and i didn’t realise how much i needed you. and i want to show you that i’m sorry.”

she wipes tears that appear on her cheeks, then sets her jaw. she wasn’t able to cry as soon as the life left catherine’s body, she remembered almost nothing, except jane telling her that she locked herself in cathy’s room, tore her’s apart and wouldn’t eat for two days. 

she moves the flashlight and lays down on the grass, fumbling to get the coat around her so that she could sleep quickly. she eventually does.

__

she wakes up at daybreak. she sits up and rubs her eyes and fixes her hair, yawning and stretching. she grabs the flashlight next to her and switches it off. 

she’s outside of a ring, which glow isn’t as bright as the one she saw last night, but still coveting attention from anne. she wills her entire body to not enter it as she busies herself putting the flashlight in her bag and eating. she lays out the food she brought at her feet and breathes deeply as she digs the quarter out of her bag and steps into the ring, a chill going over her. she puts her jacket back on.

anne kneels down and places the quarter, tails up. “i’m coming.” she whispers, as if somebody’s listening. 

the quarter sinks into the ground. 

anne, wrapping the coat around herself, shuts her eyes tightly and imagines herself sinking, as if it was into a soft bed, which you lay on for a minute and you have to get back up again. she wills herself- for her and cathy’s sake- to keep her eyes closed. 

her nose twitches when she smells smoke. though it permeates through the air like a burnt roast, hell is quite cold, barren and dark.

“i’m coming,” she whispers again, taking in the sight of a long, dark tunnel, stretching for what looked like miles. straightening her back, making the trek. 

__

the walls have vines on them, which are the only sign of anything colourful for miles. anne wonders if she’s gone mad, if she’d been tricked and is just walking in circles for all eternity, never to be found again, wandering in the cold and dark alone, because she was looking for love.

it was selfish wasn’t it? what if cathy was happy in the underworld? anne stops right where she is. 

what if she doesn’t want to be with her anymore?

she shakes her head and bites the inside of her cheek, eventually coming upon a small cottage in the middle of nowhere. with heavy and tired steps, she walks towards it and knocks on the door. 

a woman who looks like aragon, if you squint, opens the door. she’s wearing a green dress and has kinky-curly hair-  _ just like cathy’s _ \- tied up. she smiles, and it looks like she has a bit too many teeth. anne pretends not to notice.

“would you like to come in? would you like anything to eat?”

anne enters the house, but when the woman shoves food in front of where she’s sitting, she refuses kindly, keeping a smile on her face at all times. it felt like a dream, sitting here in hell, making small talk with a woman who looks like aragon. 

“can i tell you a secret?”

anne nods. when the woman whispers next to he ear with hot and sour breath, anne pretends not to care about what she said. 

“can you give me something pretty? it’s been a while, dear.”

anne plucks a white rose that she remembered to bring out from behind her ear and hands it to her, who has surprisingly soft hands. the woman smiles and admires it for a while, mumbling about how beautiful it is.

then, the woman’s face lights up. “i’ll be back in a minute.”

she skips out of the room and anne hears rustling in the room next to her, until the woman comes out and cups her hands, transferring something into anne’s. “here you go.”

it’s a red piece of yarn. she tucks it into her jacket pocket. “thank you.”

she smiles back at her, showing her odd number of teeth. 

she stands up from the kitchen table, cringing at how loud the wood is. “i’m sorry, but i must go.”

“of course.” she says, formally. “i hope to see you again.”

“me too.” it doesn’t feel like a lie. 

__

she begins down the tunnel again, barely letting the darkness reach her, since she’d anxiously put new batteries in it. she hadn’t brought her phone to check the time, and the doubts that it would work in hell, anyway, so she doesn’t know how long she’d been walking, but she doesn’t feel tired.

the silence almost seems deadly. she rummages through her bag and her hand hits something. she stops and checks what it is.

it’s food. hell, it’s an entire cake, just laying in her bag. she didn’t bring it. she doesn’t eat it. freaked out, she walks a bit faster and eventually comes upon a clearing in the tunnel, a river splitting the earth. it’s peppered in dense fog, making it so she can only see the river, which is guarded by the woman from before. anne smiles warmly at her as she approaches. 

she shows her the thread, the woman hands back her rose. she tucks it behind her ear again, and climbs into the boat that wasn’t there before. 

she hums something small as the boat hits the other side of the river, and anne steps out. she can only see about two feet in front of her.

there are people around her, but they don’t seem to notice how alive she looks, since they are crying into their hands, and the ones that aren’t doubling over are comforting the ones who are. anne frowns at the sight. 

she hums the tune to cathy’s song as she keeps her eyes forward, scanning the souls, none looking like cathy. 

she wanders around for god knows how long, fingers ghosting over shirt collars and pulling away when they don’t feel right, when their hair isn’t right and when they don’t smell the same. she keeps the sound of cathy singing in her head, begging her subconscious to not forget.

how could she?

finally, she comes across a woman crouched, looking at something on the ground, entranced. 

_ cathy. _

she tries to keep down her excitement as she kneels down next to her, softly, “hey.”

she looks up at anne. cathy’s eyes are still the same, after all the time she’s spent away, dark and comforting, like a dense forest, though they’re shadowed by stones and clouds, far away. she looks at anne and quirks a brow, but listens to her.

“do you remember that time that you had to pull me out of traffic? when i found that sock in the middle of the road and i wanted to shove it in front of your face?”

she doesn’t respond.

anne smiles. “well, it happened. or, that time that we had to keep one of our roommates from finding out that we bought a dog?”

she keeps spewing out memories that she knew wouldn’t jog cathy’s memory, but it made her feel better to talk to someone else about it. it made her feel better that it was cathy. 

“are you alive?” she asks, in a cut-glass voice, cutting anne off from another memory.

“yeah. i am?”

“what’s it like above?”

“it’s beautiful, you’d love it. the stars are bright and nature is such a vibrant green at this time of year. there are so many flowers and you can basically see through the water in the rivers.”

“really?” she muses, not looking away. “what’s it like being alive?”

“it’s fun.” she says, simply. “are you cold?”

catherine nods, and anne takes her coat off, shivering at the temperature distance and giving her anne’s green jacket, which dwarfed her. anne grabs her other coat and puts it on. “thank you.” she says. “do you know me?”

“yeah. your name is catherine, but most people call you cathy.”

“cathy.” she says, then smiles, trying it out on her tongue. she smiles, and anne barely keeps back tears. “cathy. i like it. what’s yours?”

“anne.” she replies, smiling back at her, as the world sets itself back into time. “do you want to leave?”

she nods, and anne takes her hand and stands up. she’s cold, which was the only reality check that anne had, telling her that her girlfriend was really dead. 

but she was bringing her back to life. 

she squeezes it, and smiles as she tells cathy to follow her. 

__

once they reach the river again, anne takes the rose out of her hair, not letting go of cathy’s hand, and the woman gives her the red yarn back. she thanks the woman as she gets into the boat again. when the boat hits the other side of the river, she gets up, still gripping her lover’s hand, and starts making her way down the tunnel again.

cathy can barely keep up. anne slows down, and turns to face her. cathy doubles down on the ground and starts crying. the sight, even if she was live, would break anne’s heart. but she has to be strong for her.

“hey,” she coos, gripping her shoulder and rubbing her back, “it’s alright, you can rest soon, okay?”

cathy mumbles something about being sorry and anne picks her up bridal style. she’s frighteningly light. she starts walking down the trail again as cathy presses her head in the crook of anne’s neck. 

she tries not to notice that cathy isn’t breathing. 

“we missed you a lot.” she says, though she knows that cathy won’t respond. “kitty’s had a hard time caring for our dog by herself.”

she hears cathy giggle a little, even though she probably doesn’t remember who kitty is. 

she goes through everyone and tells cathy about how much they missed her. everyone except for herself. she doesn’t know if she’d be able to handle that. catherine’s eyes are closed, so she doesn’t see her crying. 

she sees the woman’s house and smiles at her, not thinking about how she got here so fast. the woman waves. 

then she feels something watching her. she doesn’t turn around, hoping that eventually it would go away. she’d had hundreds of eyes on her before, she can do it again, right?

she notices that she’s stopped talking. she hums cathy’s song again. willing herself to not turn around, she closes her eyes and keeps walking. if she does turn around, she won’t see what’s behind her. after the feeling fades, she opens her eyes again, seeing the light close at the end of the tunnel. 

she puts cathy on the floor and wraps her in a soft blanket, then picks her back up again, mumbling that they’re almost there. cathy stays quiet. 

relief floods towards her as cahy gets heavier when she steps out of the fairy ring, placing cathy gently on the ground, right where anne left the food at the beginning of her journey. it’s night again. 

“can you breathe? cathy?” she asks. “here, can you follow my breathing?”

cathy obliges, the new sensation that needs getting used to. 

“okay. good.” she reaches over her and grabs some of the food that she left, before placing it back down and helping a woozy girl sit up. “eat this.”

when cathy follows her directions, she lifts the water bottle up to her lips and encourages her to drink. once she’s done, she says, “annie? i’m tired.”

“that’s okay.” she says. “you can go to sleep. we’ll go home in the morning.”

she nods. “can you sleep with me?”

anne’s heart jumps into her throat as she says, “of course.”

she wraps cathy in the blanket again and wraps her arms around her, laying down right beside her. she does whatever she can to keep her warm. 

anne wouldn’t say that she believes in god. but boy does she pray that night. next to her body heat, anne prays that she wasn’t dreaming, that cathy was alive and she got to take her home and show her how sorry she was for not loving her enough in their time.

but she had a second chance, which was rare. she buries her face in cathy’s hair and thanks god for this exact moment. it feels like coming home.

__

when anne wakes up, she slips her hands off of cathy and starts packing up her things, preparing to go back home, waiting until cathy wakes up on her own, since she probably hadn’t slept in ages. she smiles at her, realising that she’s real. that she’s back. 

she hears groaning next to her as cathy rises, stretching joints that hadn’t been used in months. she looks at anne, and it takes a second for recognition to cross her lover’s face as she woke up. “hi.”

“we’re going home today.” she says, putting the last thing in her bag. she zips it closed, then crosses to pick the nearest flower and tucks it behind cathy’s ear, who smiles at her. “are you excited?”

“yeah.” she says, standing up and draping the blanket across her shoulders. anne follows suit. “lead the way.”

anne grips and squeezes her hand again. this time, she’s warm.

_ until i met you. _

**Author's Note:**

> the working title of this document way: "hadestown except they're lesbians"
> 
> speaking of hadestown, the title is from doubt comes in!!!
> 
> also, i was supposed to post this last week, but school started on monday and i'm in two college level classes so please don't yell at me


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